


Reaching

by InkSplatterM



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Briggid/Finn Arya/Jamka and Azel/Sylvia mentioned, Crack Pairing, F/M, Gen, Kinda, Rare Pairings, becuase someone had to make a fic where it explained why Lester and Lex looked so alike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 01:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11544462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSplatterM/pseuds/InkSplatterM
Summary: Midir and Azel would never have brought her up to the front lines, where most of the fighting was. Prince Jamka might have, but there would have been no way to get there as fast as Lex had brought her to the wounded.The ringing question though, was why. For a man who claimed he was here only for one loyalty, he had certainly showed care for many more.





	Reaching

Aideen retreated from the dining hall. It had been a long set of days, to say the least. Kidnapped and rescued, and standing before what others would have called certain death and living. Everyone needed attention of some sort. Alec had a broken arm. Noish had hurt his ankles in a almost-dismount that threw him out of the way of an arrow but made it near impossible for him to get off his horse after. Then there were her three followers: Jamka with his feelings, Midir with his duty, and Azel with his adoration. They all wanted her attention, and she had none left to give.

“Was wonderin’ when you’d get sick of ‘em.”

“I’m sorry?” Aideen looked in the corner where Lex of Dozel had taken roost in a window. He had taken off his long coat, leaving him in his breeches and a loose shirt, deliberately casual. They had just conquered the country of Verdane. Having its youngest prince with them did not make Sigurd’s small army look like anything but a conquering outside force. There had to be brigands and other people sore at them. But here he was, playing bait by being unarmored in the window, looking out over the great green expanse of Verdane’s forests.

Aideen tugged gently on the cuffs of her sleeves. She was free, had been for days, but the smells and sounds of the castle, different than her home in Jungby, left her remembering the cell she had been kept in. She flattened her hands against her thighs.

“Your pack of love-sick puppies,” Lex continued, smirking. “I was wonderin’ when you’d want to get away from them.”

“Sir Midir is hardly ‘love-sick’, Lor-“

“Just Lex.”

“Lex. He’s only dealing with his perceived failure. I see no failure, nor does anyone else. He did his absolute best. In the end, I remained unharmed."

“Which leaves Azel and the Verdanese prince.” Lex waved a hand to stop any reply before it was voiced, as if to say ‘Let me have my fun’ before she could chide him like so many other people had in the past.

“Why are you here?”

“Huh?” Lex looked at her fully, rather than the sardonic stare out of the corners of his eyes. He sat up, swinging so that he could put his feet down on the stone floor of the hall.

“Sigurd, his allies, and his knights came to rescue me. Prince Jamka is here because he freed me from his brother’s keep. But I cannot see why you are here.”

“I was just following Azel.” He stood, his full height putting him a head taller than Aideen, forcing her to look up to keep eye contact. He crossed his arms over his chest, looking at some unspecified place over her shoulder. “Not everything is about you, your ladyship.”

“Aideen, please.”

Lex raised an eyebrow. She had surprised herself with the request for less formality. Nevertheless, any of his surprise was covered over in the small bow he made before turning and heading his way down the hall.

\----

War was horrible.

It was a silly, obvious thing to think. Of course war was horrible. People died in war in numbers that could pale to the amount that hunger or disease could take. These were things that were known. Knowing something was far different than experiencing it.

Every portion of Aideen’s perceptions had narrowed down to finding who was hurt, helping, then moving on as fast as she could. There was no time to process who had the broke arm she healed, the nearly removed leg, the chin stained with the bubbled blood of a bad chest wound. There was a wound. She healed it. Her white robes were stained with green and brown in a ring around her knees.

In the distance, Alec slumped but didn’t fall off the horse. Aideen moved as fast as she could forward, seeing nothing between her and her next healing target until a soldier in House Anphony colors conquered her vision.

Maybe she screamed.

It didn’t matter. As quickly as the soldier was there, he was gone.

Her robes were red. Lex’s horse stood before her, tramping something once human into a pulp with a gleeful expression. It had the same personality as its rider, always willing to fight something and getting joy from the rush. Lex was then lifting her with one arm. He helped her leg swing over behind him so she could straddle the horse.

The skirts of her robes were not meant for activity more strenuous than a brisk walk, and definitely were not meant to riding. They hitched to an indecent height on her hips while she sat astride the horse, holding to Lex’s belt with one hand and keeping a death grip on her Mend staff with the other. Elthin, Arya, and Lachesis could get away with short skirts and dresses with high slits, but not a woman of the cloth. Aideen was no troubadour or weapon-bearing princess.

Bloodstains leeched upward thread by woven thread.

Lex kicked his horse into a run. The wind slapped Aideen’s face.

“Where… Where are you going?” she said, shouting above the wind and the clanging of steel on steel.

“You saw Alec, right?” Lex was able to pitch his voice just so he could be heard without having to shout. “I’m taking you to him.”

Aideen buried her face into Lex’s shoulder, hiding everything from her vision except the color of his coat. The sounds couldn’t escape her though, steel screeching on steel and shouts and screams of the wounded and dying.

There was a snicker snak of Lex’s Brave Axe. The time for cowering was over. Aideen raised her head and righted her staff, holding it up as they turned near Alec. The glow of her magic fell on their wounded comrade and color returned to his face. His armor had a hole in it as big as Aideen’s fist, but blood no longer fell.

Lex reared his horse, it’s front hooves stamping on another soldier that was finished off by a blow of his axe. They galloped off to the next friend in need.

The battle was victorious. Sigurd planned their moves to take on taking Anphony Castle itself. Aideen couldn’t help but to contemplate how the battle the just won could have gone differently for her.

Midir and Azel would never have brought her up to the front lines, where most of the fighting was. Prince Jamka might have, but there would have been no way to get there as fast as Lex had brought her to the wounded.

The ringing question though, was why. For a man who claimed he was here only for one loyalty, he had certainly showed care for many more.

\----

“What are you doing with her?”

Lex crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back into the sill he was perched on, kicking up his feet. He was tall enough that he had to bend his knees to get all of him into the width of the sill. “Hello to you too, Azel. I’ve been doing great getting accused of something that I didn’t do by my best friend. How’s your day going?”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I. I have no fucking clue what you are talking about.”

Azel sighed and leaned forward, his voice a rushed whisper. “You and Lady Aideen. What’s going on between you two?”

“Oh. Uhh… Comrades on the battlefield? If she’s going to risk her neck and treat people on the front lines then she outta have someone making sure that her pretty head stays on her neck. Lachesis has her band of Cross Knights, and a personal blade, so why not give our little priestess the same.”

“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?” Azel swatted Lex’s legs. Lex moved them so he was sitting astride the sill, one leg hanging outside into the open air. “I’ve been a bad friend, haven’t I? Dragging you into all this…”

“Where’d you get that idea? Sure you’ve been trying to distract that dancing girl from Lewyn ignoring her, but you’ve always been a nice guy. You also didn’t drag me into anything. I went because you’re my friend, and Lady Aideen was important to you. None of us could have imagined that a rescue would turn into a multi-nation war.”

They sat for a moment, watching the sun set.

“Is Lady Aideen important to you too?” Axel finally said.

“That again? What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I mean…. I don’t know. It’s just that you’ve never showed an interest in anyone else in the army…”

“Look. If anything was going on, I’d tell you. You deserve that much. Like I’m sure you’d be the first to tell me if something comes up with your dancing girl.”

“Lex!” Their paired laughter rung out, and maybe Lex’s didn’t sound as hollow as he thought it did.

\----

If there was a victory that felt more like ash in his mouth than Sigurd’s conquering of Augusty, Lex couldn’t name it. There was something rotten in the empire of Granvelle, but damned if he could actually put a finger on what it was.

“Lex?”

He turned, one arm still bearing his weight as he leaned on the battlements on one of Castle Augusty’s tall towers. Lady Aideen came next to him, her white robes looking resplendent with the colors of sunset washing over them.

“I couldn’t find you in a window.” She said, a smile gracing her mouth.

“What can I say? Can’t always be predictable.”

Aideen folder her arms over her chest and stood looking over the same view that Lex had. He was not given to poetry, but the purplest phrases sprung to his mind. Gods, he was becoming just like her pack of puppies. How embarrassing.

“I asked you once why you stayed with Sir Sigurd and his army, but you’ve never asked the same of me.”

“I figured you had your own reasons, just like the rest of us. Not really my place to ask.”

“And is was my place to ask it of you?”

“I’m the one who comes from a house that doesn’t like Sigurd’s or yours. It was smart to be suspicious of me. I know that the only reason I’m as trusted as I am is because I’ve been with the army since the beginning of this fool crusade. … Course, it could just all be a long game trap.”

The smile on Lex’s face was not nice. Aideen snorted.

“Is that why you’ve been my constant protector, more observant than the sworn knights of Jungby even?”

“Ahh… well. No.”

They watched the sunset turn from orange to red, the silence stretching between them comfortably. They’d fought together in nearly every skirmish since the start of the Augustria campaign. Often times they needed no words as Lex rode up to her and assisted in getting her on his horse with him. She had cut slits into the skirts of her robes to make the transition to horseback easier.

“What sort of people do you like?”

“What brought this on?” Lex scratched the back of his head as he spoke, wracking his brain for an answer anyways. “I dunno. People who know what they want and are willing to reach out and grab it I guess. But…” Lex sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. Aideen looked at him, her eyes wide, patient, and knowing. “But they also have to know what they won’t do. Even if it means that they’ll never get what they want, there has to be something that is so abhorrent that it’d be like betraying their very soul to do it.”

Her smile widened. She leaned up and in, planting a chaste, promising kiss against Lex’s lips. “That’s what brought this on.”

He tangled his fingers into her blonde hair, pulling her back into a second kiss, and a mutual third. Aideen grabbed the lapels of his coat and leveraged him to put his back to the wall. They slid down to the floor together, chuckling at their own silliness and haste, their foreheads pressed together. A new silence wrapped around them as dusk turned to night.

\----

“So…” Lex found Azel in the camp the army made as the campaign moved them out of Augusty. He wiped his palms against eh side of his thighs. “Remember when I said that I’d tell you if there was anything going on between me and Aideen?”

“… Yes.”

“There’s something going on between me and Aideen.”

“I knew it.”

“Now don’t get angry, she kissed me first… You’re not mad?”

Lex had a whole speech prepared for explaining how he was not at any fault what so ever for the feelings shared between him and Aideen, never mind that he truly was equally at fault, but the whole thing sputtered away like a leaf in the breeze.

“No, I’m not mad. I guessed a while back, and I as mad then but…” Azel shrugged and poked at the binding of his Elfire tome. “It’d be a pretty silly reason to loose a friend, and…”

Azel looked across the camp to where Sylvia was re-doing the buns in her hair and smiling at something being said. By chance, she looked over to where Azel and Lex were and waved at them with both hands, undoing the progress that she had made with the left bun. Her smile seemed to make every torch in the camp shine twice as bright.

“Your dancing girl is pretty taken with you.”

“Yeah, she’s amazing.”

“So does she only wear those two strips of cloth or…?”

“Lex!”

\----

Lex looked around at the snow covered, a smirk sliding onto his face. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Aideen let her gaze go purposefully cow-eyed. “Oh, I don’t know what you could possibly mean.”

Silesse had treated Sigurd and his “rebels” well. Queen Rahna had made them more than welcome. That they could also act on her behalf while also appearing to be without a side or a stake was becoming an invaluable resource to her, especially as the two contenders fighting for Lewyn’s throne were making more plans and intrigues.

On this day, however, Lex and Aideen could put even that behind them and enjoy the snowfall. Lex got off his horse and knelt down to pack the fallen snow into a ball.

“Oh, you know. It’s so cold out here, we’d have to think of a few ways to warm each other up. And there’s one way that I know that I’d like to try. Just need you, and me, and one of those fur blankets the locals are fond of. And for good reason.”

“Wouldn’t we also need a fire?”

“yes a fire would help, along with you being und-“ A snowball smacked Lex right in the face. Aideen sat primly sidesaddle on her horse, a second snowball in hand. Briggid, who had also come with them, was assembling more.

“I’ll inform you Lord Lex of Dozel, that I am a mother and a woman of the cloth. I’ll not be taken in by your vulgar implica-Ahhh!”

A second snowball hit Aideen on her back, thrown from Briggid’s stock pile.

“There’s more where that came from too, if you’re going to continue on like that.”

War was declared with three sides emerging and stalemating in exhausted laughter. The plan succeeded, for Briggid had not smiled since Faval was born, her small squirming reminder of her lover now trying to gain extra forces and supplies in the Manster District and not there to see the birth of his son.

\----

Sigurd had conquered Phinora castle. Now they just had to do the last of their preperations before his army marched onward. Aideen packed and moved with clear direction, placing Lex’s things with her own. Lex came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist in a loose embrace.

“Don’t do that. We don’t know what’s going to happen.” He said against her neck.

“I’m going to join you on the field.”

“Don’t, Aideen.”

She twisted out of Lex’s arms. Comfort was the last thing she wanted. “How can you say that! I have been at every battle until now.”

“I know.”

“And I have fought at your side for most of them.”

“I know.”

“How do you expe- Would you stop agreeing with me!”

Lex held up both hands in surrender. This was not a fight that either of them wanted to have. Even if they could approach it as a more civil conversation, there wasn’t time. Lex could feel the lines of wetness curving down his cheeks. There wasn’t time. Even if he could create time, he wouldn’t be able to make enough.

Aideen touched his face, forcing their eyes to meet. “Talk to me, Lex. Don’t just agree with everything I say. Talk to me.”

“… Azel gave me a Rescue staff he found. I’m to give it to you. You need to leave here Aideen, take who you can with the staff, but. You need to get out of here. I won’t… I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you, or Lester, or...” He placed a hand on Aideen’s stomach. She was pregnant again, they both knew it, but any feelings of joy were short lived. They had to keep moving.

“I have to go.” Lex said again after a long silence. “Can’t trust Azel to watch his own back.” He placed the Rescue staff against the doorframe before he left.

Aideen sat heavily on a stool, he hands fisted tight enough to near break the skin on her palms.

She knew what she wanted. She wanted her family, Lex and their children and her sister and her children, to run away and hide together. Their circumstances wouldn't matter so long as they were together. But... to get what she wanted she would have to compromise her own soul, and Lex's.

She wanted her family, but to get it she would have to let children die and Lex would have to abandon his friends. Neither would allow that.

She went to gather whom she could, taking the Rescue staff with her. The first person Aideen came across was Arya. "Where are the twins and Shannan? We'll go together to Issach. Lachesis said she would follow with Delmud as soon as she could."

"You're leaving?" Arya snapped her sword into its scabbard with a final sounding click. She was going to fight. Jamka was as well. Perhaps, if there were less than their honor keeping them in Sigurd’s forces, they would have been long gone, across the desert to Issach, or hiding in the deepest of Verdane’s forests.

"Yes. Lex and I won't leave our children for the Dozels to find, and I couldn't live with myself if I did not do my all to protect as many of the children as I could." Aideen’s hands fluttered across her stomach, over the life growing within her. Her second child, who may would never know its father. There were too many uncertainties. She could believe that Lex would follow once the battle was over, win or lose. She could believe that Lex would do everything right, but still die. That was life. A constant, focused, reaching as far as your arms could go.


End file.
